The San Diego Padres' ongoing quest for a World Series (or at least a playoff title). "You know that many runners enter a race, but only one of them wins the prize. So run to win! Athletes work hard to win a crown that cannot last, but we do it for a crown that will last forever." 1 Corinthians 9:24-25

It’s Spring Training, That’s For Sure…

Spring Training’s kind of funny. You see a lot of crazy stuff, but the weird thing is, you don’t know if that craziness is going to carry over to the regular season. It most likely won’t, because the players aren’t exactly 100% right now, and, as we all know, it’s Spring Training. What do you expect?

The Padres played a great game against the Angels on Tuesday. We drew first blood in the bottom of the third inning with a two-run double from David Eckstein. Of course. Matt Stairs, who had two hits and a walk on the game, drove in our third run. We wouldn’t get any more runs in the whole game.

Jon Garland started the game, going a full four innings, allowing two runs on three hits with two walks and three strikeouts. Not bad. Jon hasn’t been completely on his game so far, but I’m sure that he’ll be ready to become an essential part of the rotation.

Then Tim Stauffer had to come into the game and allow two runs, which put the Angels ahead 4-3. That was the final score.

But before we got to the end of the game, we had six more stolen bases! It’s amazing! Aaron Cunningham (who I’m really liking) had two, Luis Durango had two, and Matt Stairs and Lance Zawadzki each had one. So sweet.

Mike Adams, Joe Thatcher, and Adam Russell each had a scoreless inning.

I really liked this game because it could have been a regular season. Relatively low-scoring, great pitching, lots of stolen bases. It was good.

Yesterday, though, was a Spring Training game. Noooo doubt about it.

It all started when the Royals got two runs off of Clayton Richard in the bottom of the first. Hehehehehehe!! (sorry, this game is making me laugh)

In the top of the second, what do you know? We got five runs! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! I wish we had Gameday so I could get exactly how the inning went. Unfortunately, I don’t, so I’ll just have to tell you what the boxscore says.

T. Gwynn had a huge day. He almost got a cycle, hitting a single, a triple, and a three-run double. Pretty amazing.

Kyle Blanks hit a two-run triple and three RBIs. Jerry Hairston Jr. drove in two runs. Adrian drove in two runs. Everth Cabrera, Oscar Salazar, Chase Headley, and Nick Hundley each drove in a run. Are you counting here? We scored 16 runs in the whole game!!!

We got five runs each in the fourth and the fifth, plus a lone run in the top of the sixth. There were some pretty crazy plays by the Royals (like a wild pitch giving up two runs). By the way, we were helped out a lot by the Royals. They made three costly errors. Only eight of our runs were earned. HAHAHAHAHA!!! That’s terrible. For the Royals, I mean. Whew.

But we weren’t perfect either. We had two errors, and hey, our pitchers gave up 14 runs. After Clayton’s 3.2 inning outing, Sean Gallagher had a scoreless inning. But then Mark Worrell gave up three runs, Ryan Webb gave up six, and Radhames Liz gave up one. Oh well. We did win the game, 16-14.

At one point in the game, we were winning 16-4!! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

I loved this game because it’s so cool to see the team break out the bats like that. We didn’t do it all ourselves, of course, but we still had 15 hits. It was an amazing game!!

Still not worried a bit about this team. Things are going as great as they do in Spring Training, and we’re just going to get better.

Today’s our first and only off-day of the spring, which is good for the guys. Tomorrow, we’ll get right back into it with a game against those Los Angeles Dodgers. Hmm. That’s going to be an interesting game.

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